To Plan or Not to Plan

[boydstun]

Hello,
My friend and I are taking a 2 month-ish, no-holds-bar roadtrip this summer, essentially encompassing the continental states, and a bit of Canada

So I pose to the wise forum two questions:
1. How much planning is recommended
2. Are there any places that just cannot be missed?
THANKS!

[Midwest Michael]

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

The amount of planning required depends upon your personal preference as much as anything. Now if you've got a limited amount of time and/or money and you've got a specific list of places you must see, you might need to do more planning to get to all of them, but if you're willing to simply take things as they go and see what you end up seeing, you don't need to really do all that much planning at all. Personally, I like making an outline with some general directions about where I want to go and things I might want to see, but I often don't make the specific decisions about exactly what and where until the day of.

I will note that as much time as 2 months sounds like, you've probably already got more things that you'll be able to really do. You've listed off more than 40 places, and once you factor in driving time, that's going to be a lot to fit into 60 days. But how many of those things you see, or how long you spend at any of them depends completely on what you and your friend are hoping to achieve.

The one bit of planning I would recommend is taking the roadtrip compatability quiz. When you're talking about a trip with multiple people, making sure that everyone is on the same page is even more important than knowing where you are going to go.